


Red Martian Sky

by diadelphous



Category: Prometheus (2012)
Genre: Corporate Space Empires, F/M, Litfic, Mild Language, Pre-Canon, Robots, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-25
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-19 12:40:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/573363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadelphous/pseuds/diadelphous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Meredith Vickers is in college, her father gives her the opportunity to manage a mining colony in deep space. It comes with a catch, however, in the form of David, who comes along as a corporate babysitter. But Meredith is surprised to learn that David may not be working for her father's interests after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meredith

The Weyland Industries building was the oldest on Mars, grown rather than built, back when the planet was being terraformed. It crept out of the dusty soil in twists and spires, and the weird organic glass shone golden in the sunlight. Meredith's first job had been in that building, four years ago when she was sixteen. An internship. She had maintained the digital files for the exploration division and brought cups of coffee to whomever asked for one. She hadn't been back on Mars since.

The car pulled into the driveway and a valet opened the door for her. Meredith stepped out and squinted against the sun's choleric glare. The air was thick with dust. Even with the terraforming, Mars was still mostly desert. What few trees Weyland Industries had managed to cajole into growing were as twisted and uncanny as the building, and none of them were green like Earth trees, only shades of red and yellowish-brown.

"Meredith Vickers?"

The voice was familiar. One of the assistants Meredith had met four years ago -- she couldn't remember his name.

"Yes." She turned to him, away from the glare of the sun. He stuck out a hand and she shook it. He hadn't changed much, still hunched and overworked. His skin looked sallow and thin underneath the heavy Martian sky, but then, everyone's did. Standing outside on Mars was like standing underneath a flickering fluorescent bulb.

"It's good to see you again," he said, and smiled. She returned his smile, but only briefly. "He's been expecting you."

"Yes, the flight was delayed." They turned and walked into the building, the doors sliding open with a sigh. Meredith breathed a sigh of relief at the sudden rush of cool, clean air.

"I saw. I'm afraid I'm running  late for a meeting, so I won't be able to accompany you up to his office."

"It's fine." Her voice echoed through the lobby.

"And I'm also afraid that Mr. Weyland got tied up a few hours ago with a conference call, but he asked David to wait for you."

Meredith nodded, knowing better than to reveal to this low-tier assistant that she had no idea who David was.

They walked over to the elevators in silence. Sunlight streamed in through the waved glass of the windows, illuminating the tiny specks of dust that had managed to make it through the filters. When the doors dinged and opened, the assistant punched in a code and pressed his thumb against the pad and smiled at her. This time, she didn't return it.

"It'll take you straight to his office," he said. "It was good to see you again, Ms. Vickers."

"Yes," she said. "You too."

And then the elevators doors slid shut, and she was propelled to the top floor. One day, she thought, her own genetic code would be wired into the building, and she'd be able to open the lock to her father's floor on her own. One day, but not today.

The elevators chimed. The doors opened.

His office had been redecorated, the furniture more baroque this time around, little pots of orchids (Earth-orchids, pearly white and pink and yellow with vivid green stems) sitting around in random intervals.  The windows looked out over the rusty desert and the yellow sky. There was a thing people on Earth said, _like a red Martian sky_. Meredith's mother had said it sometimes, but Meredith couldn't remember what it meant. It was just a saying. It didn't have to reflect reality.

The office was empty, which Meredith had expected. Even if her flight hadn't been delayed, even if she had arrived _early_ , the office would have been empty.  It always was.

Meredith made her way to where to the liquor cabinet used to be, once a slim wooden tray and now disguised behind a gilded mirror. When she caught sight of her reflection she saw that her skin was coated in a thin layer of red dust. Typical of this place.

In the reflection, something moved behind her. A man, wearing one of the grey Weyland suits. He stepped into a patch of sunlight and watched her, hands hanging loose at his sides. He was handsome, which she found startling: She couldn't imagine that her father would ever tolerate not being the most attractive man in the room.

"Hello," she said into the mirror. Then she pulled it open, and the man disappeared, replaced by bottles of brandy.  A stack of tumblers twinkled alongside them. The same as four years ago. Her father only ever changed the surface of things.

"Are you David?" she asked, not looking at him, pouring herself a few fingers of brandy. "The assistant said you'd be waiting for me." She turned around. The man was still standing in the patch of sunlight, still watching her. She sipped from her glass. She actually hated the taste of brandy, but it made her feel sophisticated, grown up. Part of her father's world.

"Yes, ma'am," the man said. "My name is David. Are you Meredith?"

As soon as he spoke, she saw it. He was a robot. Looking at him through the reflection she had mistaken him for a human -- even looking at him _now_ she might mistake him for a human. But his voice had the slightly mechanical cadence all robots have, a melodic lilt that can only be programmed.

"Jesus," she said without thinking.

"Ma'am? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She took another drink. The liquor burned. David -- of course. She should have made the connection earlier. Weyland Industries had built seven of the things already. Why hadn't her father told her about this one?

"Mr. Weyland asked me to wait with you." David didn't come any closer to her, only stood perfectly still, like he was used to blending in with the furniture.

"I heard." Meredith topped off her glass and shut the cabinet door. When she turned back around she stared for a moment at David, a bit unsure of herself: her brain kept wanting her to interact with him as a human, not a robot. In the end she just took a long pull of brandy and then slouched down in one of the elaborate cream-colored waiting chairs. They looked like giant orchids.

"Did you have a comfortable flight?" David asked.

"I guess."

"Is there anything you need while you wait?"

"I already have my drink."

"Of course. Let me know if you'd like another."

She waited for him to shuffle away, to melt into the background, but he stayed put, watching her. His face wasn't exactly expressionless, although she couldn't quite place the expression -- curiosity, maybe. She looked over at the window.

"Do you know when he'll be back? Mr. Weyland?"

"I'm afraid not."

It bothered her, this robot waiting for her here in her father's office. She could not shake the feeling it was all some arrangement her father calculated in order to teach her a lesson. Shove her in a room with the new David prototype. And then what? What bit of entrepreneurial wisdom was she supposed to glean from this encounter? Meredith wished she was back at school, in one of her business classes where she always knew the answers and always impressed her teachers.

"If you'd like to talk," David said suddenly, "I'm equipped to do that."

His voice startled her. She drained the rest of her brandy and turned to him. He looked at her face, looked at her hand.  Then he glided forward and took the tumbler away from her.

"Would you like another?" he asked.

Meredith shook her head. He smiled in a cold, pleasant way and moved to a far corner of the room. There was the clink of glass on metal. When he returned his hands were empty.

"Would you like to talk?" he said.

He was awfully insistent about talking. She supposed he was memorizing their conversation. Recording it. She knew the other Davids had done as much. It was, she suspected, part of the reason the company produced robots at all: because paying for loyalty was too expensive.

Meredith had always admired her father's ingenuity.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, meaning, _What does Father want us to talk about_?

"Whatever you'd like." A non-answer. She felt like she was being toyed with, and she wanted to toy back. Maybe this was her father's test, this stupid cat-and-mouse game. How much would David tell her, she wondered, if she asked? How deep did his programming go?

 David sat down beside her, tucking himself neatly into the curve of the orchid-chair. He looked like he belonged there, like he was a part of it.

"Are you a prototype?" she asked.

"No. But I was the first to be manufactured." His face took on a peculiar blankness as he spoke. It reminded her of the older models, the David 6 or 7, the ones they retailed. She missed that imprint of curiosity from before, then wondered why she missed it.

"He hasn't gone public with you yet."

"No."

"Do you know why not?"

"I'm afraid I don't."

Meredith settled back in her chair. The office was completely silent save for the distant white-noise hum of the building's electrical generators.

"How long have you been online?"

"Ten months."

Meredith froze. A weight slammed into her stomach. Ten months? She'd seen her father at least a dozen times during the last ten months, meeting him for dinner when he came to Earth for business trips, flying out to his space station during spring break. And not one word about a new David model.

"Have you been with Mr. Weyland all this time?" she asked.

David studied her. "In a sense," he said, after a moment. "He commissioned me for work off-planet."

Meredith expected him to continue, but his words only faded into silence.

"You're not programmed to talk about it, I assume?"

"I believe he wishes to speak with you about it himself."

That caught her by surprise. "Is that why he called me out here? I'm missing my classes, you know."

"He's aware, Ms. Vickers. And I'm afraid I don't know any of the details. He should be here soon, however. I can check the status of his call if you'd like."

"That's not nec --"

But David was already standing up, already moving away from her, toward the large oak desk in front of the window. He was lying, Meredith thought. About knowing the details. He lied and then he changed the subject.

Interesting.

David was speaking now, in a quiet murmur, his back to her, his head down. She couldn't understand what he was saying. He didn't speak for long. When he finished he lifted his head and turned back to her and smiled.

"Wonderful news, Ms. Vickers," he said. "The call just ended. Mr. Weyland will be joining us in only a few short moments."

He seemed pleased to deliver his message, the way robots always did. But unlike other robots Meredith had known, she didn't find his delivery entirely -- _genuine_ , if that was the word she wanted. She couldn't put her finger on it. She wouldn't say that David unsettled her, but there was something about him that set him apart from all the previous Weyland robots. Something that made him different.

Across the room the elevators chimed and opened.

"Father."  Meredith stood up, conscious of her posture, the arrangement of her hair around her shoulders. Her father sauntered in, face breaking open into a smile when he saw her.

"Meredith," he said. "So glad you finally made it. David told me your flight was delayed."

Meredith felt an uncomfortable internal twinge. She glanced at David. He was gazing beatifically at her father.

She frowned.

"I hope you and David have been getting to know each other," her father said. He breezed past her, headed towards his desk. David trailed behind him by rote, like any robot. Meredith did the same.

"I wished you'd told me about him," Meredith said cautiously.

"What?" Her father glanced at her over his shoulder. "Well, we've been having to keep him under wraps, sweetheart. You know how these things go. And with you in school -- couldn't risk having you let something slip. You've any idea how many Yutani sons are accepted into that program of yours?"

_Sons_. Meredith sat down in the chair in front of her father's desk. "I wouldn't have told anyone."

 Her father slid into his own chair, leaning his head against the headrest. Martian sunlight poured around him like a halo.

"You can't take it personally, Meredith," he said. "It's just good business practice. Besides, you know about him now. Isn't that right, David?" He grinned at him, and David's mouth curved up a little. Not quite a smile.

"Yes," Meredith said, " _I_ do."

If her father noticed the edge in her voice, he didn't react to it. "I'm sure you're wondering why I called you out here."

"No," Meredith said. "Not at all." It was impossible to keep the sarcasm out of her words. Her father gave her a sharp look.

"I'm missing classes," she said, by way of an explanation.

"Classes." He snorted derisively. "I've got a proposition for you. Better than classes."

For the first time since landing on Mars, a little thrill of excitement worked its way up Meredith's spine. The last time her father'd had a proposition for her, she'd been sixteen, and she wound up with that internship here, that first real step toward her goal of emulating her father. Of becoming her father. But unlike when she was sixteen, she couldn't show him her excitement.

"Oh?" she said, and drummed her fingers against the chair. "I don't know much that could be better than classes."

Her father laughed. "You put too much stock in school. That's why I asked you here. I want to give you a job."

"You have three degrees. I don't see how you can say you don't put much stock in school."

"Three degrees, and I didn't learn a damn thing from any of them. You want to run this company someday?"

The air sparked with electricity and the room fell silent. It was the first time her father had ever really acknowledged what she was doing, trying to become him. He'd named her heir, of course, but had always told her that her inheritance was the money, not the company. Even with the internship, he had acted like he was doing her mother a favor.

 She didn't know how to answer at first, and she was suddenly aware of David, standing unintrusively in the corner, hands at his sides, staring at her.

"I've thought about it," she said.

"Well, that's a rather diplomatic response."

Meredith didn't answer.

"Yes, I got the degrees when I don't know any better. But I learned how to run this company the first time I came out to Mars with the mining crew." He stood up and walked over to the window and gazed out at the desert. "Come here."

Meredith sighed, stood up, joined him.  He pointed through the glass at a place on the horizon that looked like all the other places. "There," he said. "They set up the first drill there. Huge thing. Noisy.  I stood on that crest over there --" And he pointed again, at a little swell of red hill "-- and watched over the whole operation.  By that point I'd gotten all those degrees that impress you so much, but nothing, _nothing_ , matched the thrill of watching the mining. Nothing." He shook his head, his eyes glazed over with nostalgia. Past-drunk, her mother used to call it. She would know. She got past-drunk often enough.

Her father turned away from the window and sat back down. Meredith stayed standing, the sunlight warm against her back.

"I want you to experience that," he said. "That's why I called you out here. We're setting up a new operation on LV-183. We need someone on planet to represent company interests."

Meredith didn't dare react. Not yet.

"What do you say? Willing to give up a year or two of classes?"

Excitement jangled Meredith's nerves like a cut wire. Excitement, confusion, suspicion, delight. It was never just one emotion with her father.

"Two years is a long time," she said carefully.

"Well, it'd be close to one to start with." Her father leaned back in his chair. "About three months to fly out there, three months back. Six months to get your feet wet. If you do a good job, I'll let you stay on a little longer." He paused, and in the silence her brain filled in the rest: _And if you don't, I'll destroy any chances you have at working for Weyland Industries, much less running it._

"How long do I have to think about it?"

"Oh, David, she wants to _think_ about it?" Her father laughed. David didn't, only smiled in his cold way. "We definitely need to get you out of school for awhile. This isn't the sort of thing you _think_ on. You either _do_ it or you don't. So what's it going to be?" He leaned forward over his desk. "You hop on a shuttle back to Earth or you hop onboard the _Antigone_ to LV-183?"

"You want me to tell you right now?"

Her father nodded, his eyes gleaming.

Meredith's thoughts whirred. She looked at her father, at the desert, at the sunlight, at David. She imagined sitting in this office one day, surrounded by orchids, drinking brandy, building her damn secret robots.

"Come on, Meredith, make your decision. If you're going to run this company, you can't think about things. You've got to act, and you've got to act correctly." He snapped his fingers.

All Meredith heard was _If you're going to run this company_. It repeated in her head, a refrain she'd wanted to hear from him for as long as she'd known he'd existed. _If you're going to run this company_.

_If you're going to run this company, you have to go to LV-183_.

"Yes," she said. The Martian sunlight was making her eyes water. "Yes, of course I'll go."

And her father smiled.


	2. David

When Mr. Weyland had told him he would be meeting his sister, David had not expected a human woman to walk into the office, her heart radiating lines of living heat. He had been unsure how to interact with her, knowing she wasn't someone of his kind, knowing that Mr. Weyland nonetheless saw them as siblings. That day in the office had been a complicated day for David. He had offered to fix her a drink because he didn't know what else to do.

Today was not a complicated day. The last seventy-six days, in fact, had not been complicated days, because for the last seventy-six days, David had been alone, tending to the _Antigone_ as Ms. Vickers and Captain Dorca slumbered in their cryochambers. He supposed he was bored. This was the same ship he had taken to LV-183 when he went the first time, to monitor the proceedings at Mr. Weyland's request. During the course of that first trip, he had watched all the films in the library, read all the books, listened to all the music.  He did the same on the return trip.  He did the same on this trip, as well, but this time he began to notice he preferred some films to others, some books, some pieces of music. It was a peculiar sensation, realizing that he'd rather read Ovid's _Metamorphosis_ to Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_. Mr. Weyland had led him to understand that he couldn't experience preferences. A synthetic being, after all, had no use for them.

Today, on the seventy-seventh day of his journey, David began making a pair of lists. He did it mostly to amuse himself, because this ship offered nothing new to stimulate him. He typed the lists into the ship's computer because it always felt more formal to write things out. He titled one list _Preferred_ and one _Not Preferred_ , and then he sorted every item in the ship's library into one list or the other.

On the _Preferred_ list he wrote _Lost in Translation, Paradise Lost_ , and _The_ _Rite of Spring_ , among other things.

On the _Not Preferred_ list he wrote _It Happened One Night_ , _The Great Gatsby,_ and _Gone with the Wind,_ among other things.

Some items were easier to sort than others. Some items he had to puzzle over for quite some before finally reaching a decision: it took him nearly two hours, for example, to finally decide to sort _Vertigo_ into the _Not Preferred_ list.

When he finished, he experienced that warm sensation he associated with completing tasks for Mr. Weyland and other humans. It was part of his programming, a sort of delight in giving humans what they wanted. Sometimes he didn't care for it. Sometimes he wished he didn't experience it at all.  But he enjoyed the sensation today (now the seventy-eighth day of his journey) as he read over his lists.

He decided to categorize the rest of the ship.

He placed the holding bay on the _Not Preferred_ list, because he had no use for it, and right now it was empty anyway save for some of Ms. Vickers' belongings. He placed the track lighting in the ship's corridors on the _Preferred_ list, because he enjoyed the way the pale lights looked in the dark. The engines were also _Preferred_. The crew quarters were _Not Preferred_. The bridge was _Preferred_ , of course, because he spent the most time there, looking out at the unending swirl of stars. The entertainment room was _Preferred_. The space suits were _Not Preferred_ , after some consideration. The kitchen, he decided, was _Preferred_ , although he could not give a specific reason as to why.

And then he came to the cryochambers.

_Preferred_ or _Not Preferred_? David stared at the computer screen, the cursor blinking out its simple unerring rhythm. He wasn't sure. They were like the space suits: he had no need for them himself, but they were necessary for the survival of human beings. His programming told him this made them _Preferred_ , and yet he didn't feel right -- didn't feel _honest_ \-- adding them to the _Preferred_ list.

_Cryochambers_ , David wrote. _Not Preferred._

He left the computer. He was not supposed to grow tired, and yet he was tired of making his lists. He went into the cryo room, where all five chambers were empty save for two, the ones containing Ms. Vickers and the captain. He knelt down beside Ms. Vickers' chamber and placed his hand on the screen and felt her heart beating. It reminded him of the cursor on the computer screen as he had tried to decide if he Preferred or Didn't Prefer cryochambers.

In the chamber, Ms. Vickers looked like a patch of electric light. Her eyes moved back and forth beneath her lids. David wondered, rather in spite of himself, how he would sort her: Preferred? Not Preferred? This was a trickier conundrum than the space suits or the cryochambers.

She was human, so his programming insisted she be sorted into _Preferred_. David didn't trust his programming when it came to his lists. However, he also wasn't sure she should be sorted into _Not Preferred._ That categorization didn't feel right, either. They had only interacted once, that day in Mr. Weyland's office, and while she hadn't been kind to him, neither had she been particularly cruel. David could think of many humans he would sort into the _Not Preferred_ list, and Ms. Vickers didn't seem to belong with them.

He stared down at her, considering. Her life signs flashed on the monitors. Her eyes moved. He wondered, briefly, what she dreamed about. He thought about Mr. Weyland ( _Preferred_ , there was no doubt -- in that one thing, he could not deny his programming). She didn't look like him. Perhaps she took after her mother. David had never seen a picture of her mother. Mr. Weyland had never even mentioned her. Only Ms. Vickers. Only Meredith.

"Meredith Vickers," David said, his voice echoing off the walls of the cryo room. "Uncategorized."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and commented so far! I really appreciate it :)


	3. Meredith

Meredith was dreaming of her mother's house in Florida, the sweet steamy air and the constant rustle of the jasmine growing over the porch, the smoke from her mother's cigarettes, the green light falling dappled through the windows.

And then she wasn't.

Consciousness slammed into her, violent and sudden. She was aware of the cryo fluid rushing through her system, and the fragrant sense memory of Florida fell away, replaced by the cold humming of the ship's engines. The bright track lighting hurt her eyes, and her stomach was churning around, roiling like a storm --

She leaned over the edge of her cryochamber and vomited on the floor.

"Ms. Vickers, I'm here to offer assistance. I have towels."

_Towels_ , Meredith thought stupidly, and then, with a jolt and a cold creep of dread, she recognized the voice.

She lifted her head and found David standing before her, towels draped over his arm, as he promised. He also carried a metal bowl, which he offered to her. She only stared at it.

"David?" Her voice hissed like an accusation.

"Yes. Mr. Weyland sent me to ensure you got settled properly."

Meredith's stomach lurched again. She grabbed the bowl from David and vomited again, ropes of pale cryo-fluid. She could feel him standing there, staring at her, waiting with his towels. It was humiliating.

"Leave me alone," she muttered, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "Go help the captain."

"Captain Dorca has no need for my assistance. He's made this journey several times. In face, he's already in the dining area. You can join him as soon as you're feeling better."

Meredith glanced around the room and found the cryochamber where the captain had been sleeping. It hung open and empty. She leaned over the bowl and dry-heaved. It was true that his was her first time on a hypership -- she'd never travelled further than Mars, a fact she'd not found embarrassing until now, knowing that the captain, the only other human on the ship, had rolled out of his cryochamber as easily as if he had rolled out of bed.

She vomited again, mostly clear bile, and David knelt beside her and moved to wipe her face with one of his towels. She pushed him away.

"I can do it myself," she said, grabbing at the towel. Her hands shook. David took the bowl away from her and stepped off to the side while she wiped her face clean. She'd read about the after-effects of the cryochambers -- the vomiting and the shivering and the disorientation -- but that intellectual knowledge hadn't been enough to prepare her. Not at all.

 She was beginning to see her father's point about experience versus education. And she hated that education was where apparently excelled.

"Once you've showered and dressed, you'll need to eat something," David said.

"I know."

"We're waiting in the planet's orbit right now. When you're ready, we'll descend." He gave her a cold smile and Meredith stared up at him, her whole body still shaking. _Mr. Weyland sent me to ensure you got settled properly._ She didn't believe that for a fucking second. She'd allowed herself a few moments of naivete on Mars, but she'd always known this assignment was not so straightforward as it appeared. Her father had sent David to administer whatever tests he had planned for her out here on the edge of civilization. David would watch her, she understood, he would record her, and he would report back every show of weakness.

Damn him and his towels.

Meredith stood up, stretching out her body for the first time in three months. David watched her with his placid and uncanny expression.

"I'm going to wash up," she said. "I expect to be ready to go planetside within the hour."

David smiled like this pleased him. "Very good to hear, ma'am."

* * * 

Meredith hadn't had much time to study LV-183 before she had to board the _Antigone_. Her father had only given her three weeks to settle her affairs for the next two years: to drop her classes at school, to make arrangements for an acquaintance to sublet her apartment, to say goodbye to her professors and the few girls she called friends. She wasn't even able to tell her mother in person that she was leaving, and had to instead tell her over video conference, her mother staring blankly into the camera while Meredith spoke, drinking something out of a coffee mug that was probably alcoholic.

"Don't let him hurt you," she'd said, and Meredith knew it was worthless to explain to her that he _had_ to hurt her, that it was the only way she'd ever prove herself.

Because of all those loose ends, she'd only had two days to sit down with the Weyland computer files on LV-183, although she'd stayed up late  each night, pouring over them, memorizing a random smattering of facts and details. LV-183 was actually a moon, terraformed about thirty years ago for the sole purpose of extracting a mineral required for the production of the hard drives found in all of Weyland Industries' robots. The average daily temperature hovered around minus ten degrees Celsius, and Meredith had spun through photographs of the moon's surface that all looked like Christmas cards, white snow and green cedars. She made sure to memorize the names of the miners, as many as she could, and read up on their backgrounds, their previous employers, their times spent with Weyland Industries.

None of this research prepared her.

She sat on the bridge of the ship as they descended. Captain Dorca gave her an easy smile when she asked if she could, said, "Sure, whatever you want," and then ignored her the rest of the way down. She was aware of David standing in the corner but did her best to ignore _him_.  When the ship passed through the atmosphere everything in the window turned white, and she actually gasped out loud. Captain Dorca laughed and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment and she thought about David recording her gasp, preparing to send it back to her father.

She needed to be more careful.

The white continued all the way down. Meredith realized it was snow, swirling around the ship as they made their descent. Bits of ice formed on the glass, crawling across it in thin delicate lines.  She curled her hands into fists, her heart pounding, and when she glanced over at Captain Dorca he was hunched over his controls, eyes fixed firmly ahead.

"Not long now," he muttered.

The ship jerked back and forth in the wind, but Meredith choked down her fear.  Captain Dorca cursed. And then, slowly, like a woman peeling back a curtain, the snow swirled away, revealing a great expanse of glittering white ice. The mining station was a bright orange-red smudge against that white convas, like an abstract painting.

"Worst of it's up top," Captain Dorca said. "Once you get through that, the surface is usually calm."

"I see." Meredith could hardly breathe. She'd never seen so much snow.

"Are you ready to disembark?" David asked, startling her. She collected herself and nodded.

"You're gonna want to bundle up," Captain Dorca said, and he shut off the _Antigone_ 's engines.

Meredith left the bridge and went down to the holding bay, where her trunks of clothes lay waiting for her. She'd packed her coat and scarf and gloves on top, and she pulled them out of the trunk, smoothing down the wrinkles.

"Do you need assistance?"

Meredith steadied herself at the sound of David's voice. "No," she said, pulling on her coat. She turned around. He was wearing his own coat, his own gloves. "I'm fine."

"Once we're ready, I can take you to the station," David said. "We can send someone to fetch your things."

Meredith nodded. She wrapped her scarf over head, pulled on her gloves.

"Ready," she said.

Except she wasn't. When Captain Dorca released the holding bay doors, cold air blasted in with enough force that Meredith had to turn her face away. Her eyes watered. She thought about frostbite, her nose turning black and falling off.

She felt a hand on her arm.

"This way, Ms. Vickers," David said.

She was too stunned by the cold to shake him off.  He led her out of the ship and into the snow. Her feet sank into it by a few centimeters. The air had a glint to it like light refracting off the edge of the knife, and the sky was the pearly color of the inside of a mollusk's shell.

David led her across the landscape. Her breath formed in white clouds in front of them and her body shivered the way it had when she woke from the cryochambers. Snow seeped in through her boots and turned her feet numb.

 Meredith suspected her father sent her to this place in particular because she had grown up in a swamp. Because nothing, _nothing_ , about LV-183 was familiar to her. It was as alien as if the atmosphere had never been transformed, and she had just as little right to be walking across its surface.

A miner was waiting for them at the station's entrance, smoking a cigarette and shivering beneath his coat. He squinted at Meredith through the snow's glare, his gaze moving up and down the length of her body, like he was trying to look through the layers of her clothes. She caught his eye and glared until he looked away.

"Welcome to LV-183," he said, still looking off to the side. He flicked his cigarette into the snow and it disappeared with a hiss.

"Thank you," she said, in the cold, measured tones she'd learned from her professors. "I look forward to working with you."

"I can show you the facility," David said, entering a code into the keypad beside the door. The door swished open. The miner ducked in without saying anything, and then she and David followed. The air inside was hot and dry, the cooridor empty. Meredith pulled off her scarf. She still felt disoriented, although she wasn't sure if it was from the snow or from the cryochamber or from David or from the fact that she had no idea what the fuck she was doing.

* * * 

David took her to meet the mining crew a few hours later, after she'd had time to see her quarters (spacious, tastefully decorated, with a private bathroom and a kitchenette) and unpack her trunks. She changed into the grey Weyland suit and stared at herself in the mirror above her bathroom sink. Under normal circumstances she would have put on makeup, a bit of eyeshadow and lip gloss, but then she remembered the miner leering at her and so she set the eyeshadow brush back down on the counter. She thought about the day her father named her as heir -- " _This works better with a son, but I guess you'll do_."

She left her face bare and pulled her hair back in a severe ponytail.

A chime shimmered through her quarters.  "Come in!" she said, and the room responded, the doors sliding open with a soft whisper. When she stepped out of the bathroom David was waiting for her. He was dressed in an identical suit. For a moment they only stared at each other.

"The crew is ready to meet you, Ms. Vickers."

_Yeah, I'm not ready to meet the crew_. But she only said, "Very good," and then followed him out into the station's labyrinth of hallways. Her heart fluttered inside her chest and her palms were slick with sweat but she reminded herself that David was recording her, that he was going to send all this back to her father. She had to be wary.

The crew was waiting for her in the equipment room, almost a hundred of them all sprawled out on fold-up chairs, surrounded by a forest of machinery Meredith didn't even recognize, much less know how to operate. She could feel their eyes burning holes through her as she walked up to the front of the room. David handed her a microphone and slipped off to the side as if to join the rest of the machines. For a moment Meredith just stood there stupidly, gazing out those hard, weatherworn faces. She'd known faces like that when she was a little girl, knew what sort of people wore them: People who didn't take bullshit and didn't trust outsiders. She might've grown up to become one of them, actually, if her father hadn't swooped in and carried her away.

Any sort of in she might have had with these people was lost a long time ago. She took a deep breath.

"I know most of you don't know me," she said, and there was her first lie -- she said _most_ when she meant _all._ "My name is Meredith Vickers. I work for Weyland Industries." She gave a thin, tight-lipped smile, and despite her lack of makeup she still felt too pretty, too much like a daughter. "I'm sure you all think I'm here to represent the company's interests, but as you're all part of the company, I assure you I'm here to represent your interests as well."

She'd come up with that line in the shower after waking up from the cryochamber. She'd whispered it to herself as the hot water ran over her skin and thought the words had a nice to ring to them. She believed them, to an extent. She understood well enough that an effective manager always respects her employees.

But when she spoke that line into that microphone, in that strange cavernous room full of suspicious eyes, it felt tinny and faraway and distorted, some distant transmission lost in space years ago. The miners shifted in their seats, exchanged glances. Scowled.

Meredith glanced at David. He was staring at her -- recording her. She wouldn't let him trick her into thinking he was just another computer gone into hibernation.

She pushed on.

"I look forward to working with all of you. I'm not here to do your job and I'm not here to interfere --"

"Horseshit," someone said, toward the back of the room, and Meredith closed her eyes for a second and ignored it.

"Weyland Industries prides itself in hiring the best," she said. "You're all the best. I won't interfere because there won't be any reason to."

No one said anyway. She gazed over the room, all those men and woman who didn't care if Weyland stayed on top of the synthetics industry, and who didn't have fathers to impress.

"Thank you for your time," Meredith said. "I'll let you get back to work. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask."

The miners all shuffled to their feet, voices rising in a chatter. When David took the microphone from Meredith, she smiled. It was not a smile for him but for the recording, for her father.

She'd come here, she'd taken the position. She hoped she'd passed the first test.


	4. David

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some mention of past abuse (in this chapter only) that could be potentially triggering.

On his list of preferences, Meredith Vickers remained uncategorized.

David watched her over the course of the next few weeks, studying her, memorizing her actions and responses as Mr. Weyland had asked him to. It was not an unpleasant assignment. Ms. Vickers largely ignored him, tending to her duties as he waited in the corner for any instructions. On the rare occasions when she did ask him to do something, more often than not she said "please" and "thank you."  It was quite a contrast to the previous company representative, Mr. May, who had made no attempt to hide the fact that he found David threatening and unnatural.

David had been sent to record his progress as well.  Mr. Weyland had hand-selected Mr. May out of a shortlist of possible candidates for vice president of the company -- a position that brought with it a mentorship with Mr. Weyland himself. Mr. May was also to be Mr. Weyland's replacement as head of Weyland Industries. That was why he had been sent here to LV-183.

However, Mr. May had only stayed on the planet for a month and a half before Mr. Weyland fired him. David could not judge whether or not Mr. May did a good job in his capacity as manager -- he wasn't programmed to understand that side of business, because, as Mr. Weyland told him, it required a human touch. However, David did understand the ways in which Mr. May might show his disloyalty to the company, and late at night, when the mining station was shut down and sleeping, David would go through the day's recordings and alter them slightly. Mr. May was not disloyal to Mr. Weyland in the slightest, but David could correct for that, and he did. The first time he made a correction it had been as an experiment, merely to see if he could. When his experiment was successful, he repeated it, to ensure that it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't. After that, he continued to alter the recordings because he found something about it satisfying -- going through the day's events and inserting tiny acts of corporate treachery into Mr. Way's actions. It reminded him of the time one of the miners was brought in with a burn and David had smoothed the healing lotion onto his skin.  The lotion contained a mild anesthetic and the miner had closed his eyes and sighed and the expression of pain went out of his face.  That was how David had felt, altering the recordings of Mr. May so that they would displease Mr. Weyland. It was how he felt, when Mr. May received the transmission telling him his career was over.

David didn't alter the recordings of Ms. Vickers. Of course he had no way of knowing if she was doing a good job, but he thought her treatment of the miners was even-handed and fair, and she worked long hours, as Mr. Weyland did. 

She wasn't working right now, however, because it was late enough that even she was asleep in her quarters. Mr. Weyland had instructed David to stay with her through the night, but because he hadn't actually been programmed to do so, he left her room when she was sleeping. He found watching humans sleep dull. It was more interesting to wander through the darkened station, examining the remains of the day's work: the tools laid out and not put away properly, the reminders one of the engineers always scrawled to herself and stuck on her computer (not about work, David noted, but about personal things, like cooking dinner, calling an old friend). He logged into the computers and scrolled through personal communications and sloppy calculations and pornography and saved transmissions from Earth and Mars and hastily patched-together code and video games with lists of high scores.  On one computer he found a back-and-forth exchange between two of the miners complaining about Ms. Vickers. He read it with interest. They called her crude names and talked about how she thought she was better than everyone else. They had said the same things about Mr. May, although at least with Mr. May the assessments were more accurate.

David closed down the message exchange, then closed down the computer. Two days ago, the miner who had instigated the exchange, Mr. Corban, had been caught sneaking off the mining site to smoke marijuana with Ms. Lee, from the science division. Ms. Vickers had caught them. She'd decided she'd like to tour the site -- "To make sure everything's running smoothly," she told David, not looking at him as she spoke but at her computer monitor, her fingers flying over the keyboard. "I'm assuming you'll have to accompany me."

"I'd be happy to accompany you," David said, avoiding her insinuation. Interesting that she seemed aware of his intentions, his programming. Mr. May hadn't.

David led Ms. Vickers through the center of site. He gave her earplugs because the drill was running, its rattling whine shattering the calm of the ice. They stood at the site's edge and Ms. Vickers craned her head back, watching the steam billow up against the sky. Her heart was beating faster than normal. He could see it more easily in the cold, those lines of red and gold and yellow-white, wavering like a mirage.

"Show me the rest of it, please," she said, turning away from the drill.

"My pleasure," he said, and for a moment she almost seemed to smile at him, even though she never smiled.

They walked through the snow, beating grey footprints into the drifts. Ms. Vickers wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, despite her thick coat and scarf. David considered giving her his own coat as an added layer of warmth but his programming told him no; it would be unsettling for the humans to see him walk through the cold in only a t-shirt.

  He showed her the readings shack and the break shack. The miners glared at them when they came inside. It was worse in the break shack. "You're letting the cold air in," one of them snapped, even though the door was shut and the room was quite warm.

Ms. Vickers gave him a hard glinting stare and said, "I wanted to make sure everything was in order."

"It's a fucking break room, what do you expect? Or is this some cost thing? We drinking too much coffee?" The miners all looked at each other and laughed. "That's what the last one was always threatening us with." His voice switched over to a nasally whine David supposed was meant to emulate Mr. May. "'You don't get your quotas up I'm gonna shut off the heat in the break shack.'"  More laughter.

Ms. Vickers opened her mouth. David expected her to say she had no intention of turning off the heat, but instead she said, "The last one?"

The miner looked at her with a malicious, appraising expression. "Yeah," he said. "You really think you were the first one out here? Weyland sends 'em to LV-183 as a test, right? Makes sense. Guess he figures you can make it here you can make it anywhere." The miner's lip curled. "Doubt you'll make it, sweetheart."

Ms. Vicker's face was stone. "Thank you for your input," she said. "And no, I will not be turning the heat off in the break shack. If you don't keep your quotas up, I'll fire you and hire someone who knows how to actually do your job."

She whirled around and stalked back out into the snow. David could hear the miners' mocking laughter even after the door swung shut. He knew Ms. Vickers could as well.  She walked away from the shack with big, stomping steps. He followed. Her face was red, her eyes bright.

"Who was the last one?" she said. "You were here with him, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Who was it?"

David hesitated. "It's of no importance. He did not last long --"

"You can't tell me." Ms. Vickers throw up her hands. "I get it. Fine. Don't fry yourself out just because I asked you a question."

"I appreciate your concern for my well-being, Ms. Vickers."

She gave him a strange look, one he didn't really understand, then shook her head, gossamer strands of hair clinging to her cheeks. They glinted in the sunlight. Sadness passed over her features like a cloud. "I guess it was too much to hope for that I'd be his first choice."

David didn't think she was speaking to him, however, so he didn't respond. Her words evaporated on the air. She turned away from David and began picking her way through the snow. "Well!" she called out over her shoulder. "Are you going to show me the rest of the facility or not?"

David hurried to her side. "There isn't much else to show. Some of the discarded equipment is kept in the back, but I don't know if it would be of much interest to you."

"It would. Show me, please." Mr. Vickers' voice lacked any inflection, and she stared straight ahead. She was upset. David thought about his experiences with Mr. May. He used to put his cigarettes out on David's arm and then ask if it hurt. It didn't, of course, and the burns healed overnight. But each time the cigarette touched his skin he felt as if something was being ripped out of him, something that couldn't be replaced.

He wondered if Ms. Vickers felt that way, too.

It was inappropriate to ask her, so he didn't. He only led her through the snow to the stacks of discarded equipment. David didn't like coming back here and seeing all this abandoned machinery. He didn't know why.

Ms. Vickers stopped.

"Ms. Vickers? Is something wrong?"

She didn't answer. Her eyes were narrowed, and she turned her head side to side. Then she sniffed.

"Somebody's getting high out here," she said. "And I imagine they're getting paid company money to do it."

David wasn't sure what to say. Ms. Vickers prowled through the snow. She still seemed upset. David followed behind her. They hadn't walked for long when they came across Mr. Corban and Ms. Lee, sitting on top of Mr. Corban's coat and passing a cigarette back and forth between them.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ms. Vickers asked.

Ms. Lee let out a little squeak of surprise and dropped the cigarette in the snow. Mr. Corban leaned back, gazing lazily up at Ms. Vickers.

"We were just taking a break," he said. "You ever need to go out for a smoke?"

"You know damn well you can't operate the machinery if you're stoned." David recognized the rage simmering beneath Ms. Vicker's voice. He'd head the same thing enough times from Mr. Weyland.

"Sure I can," Mr. Corban said. "And Lucy works in an office, you can't hold it against her --"

"I don't." Ms. Vickers stepped forward. Her eyes were bright again. "This is about you."

David felt his programming kick in: this was something between humans, he needed to tuck himself out of the way until it was over. But he didn't move. Partially because he was recording the encounter and partially for some other reason he couldn't identify.

Mr. Corban laughed. "Me?"

"I know for a fact that you're scheduled to operate the drill in -- what is it now, twenty minutes? If you don't have your full faculties, you could get someone _killed_."

Mr. Corban laughed again and stood up, revealing a half-empty bottle of the cheap whiskey favored by the miners tucked into the snow.

"You've been _drinking_ too?" Ms. Vickers launched forward and grabbed the bottle before Mr. Corban had a chance to react. Then she slammed it against the side of an old fork lift, glass and whiskey sparkling in the sun.

"What the fuck?"

Ms. Vickers tossed the broken bottle neck off to the side. "Don't you dare talk to me like that," she snarled, and she pressed her face close to his and he flinched away, no longer looking so self-assured.

"You've put the lives of your entire crew in danger," she said. Her voice was cold, calm, almost calculating. "You've put your own life in danger too, but quite frankly I don't give a _shit_ about that."  She jabbed her finger in the direction of the station. "Report back to your quarters and stay there." His mouth dropped open, but she didn't give him a chance to talk back. "I _will_ be checking the video feeds. If you don't do as I ask I'll have you on the first ship back to Earth, no severance pay. Do you understand?"

"You wouldn't fucking dare."

"I told you not to speak to me like that." She leaned close to him. Her chest rose and fell, her hands knotted into fists. David was startled by her ferocity, although it was understandable -- she was, after all, Peter Weyland's daughter. "But yes, I _would_ fucking dare. You're facing three months docked paychecks as it is. You're lucky I'm letting you keep your job at all. Now _go_."

She shrieked the last word, a break in her frosted-over delivery. Mr. Corban gaped at her for a moment, then glanced at Ms. Lee. She looked away from him. For a moment David thought Mr. Corban would say something more, but he only slouched away from the wall, glaring at Ms. Vickers with an expression of pure loathing.

Ms. Vickers returned it.

As soon as he was gone she turned to Ms. Lee.

"I'm sorry," Ms. Lee stammered. "It won't happen --"

"Go to medical and tell them to give you a drug screening," Ms. Vickers snapped. "You'll be punished accordingly. If I don't have your results by this evening you'll be joining Mr. Corban on the first ship back to Earth."

Ms. Lee stared for a moment. Then she dipped her head and followed the miner's tracks back to the station.

Ms. Vickers stared after them. The wind fanned her hair out behind her and it sparked like the glass from the broken whiskey bottle. Her heart was raging, all that pounding light and heat. It was a beautiful image, David thought, like a painting, like an ancient work of art.

* * * 

David accessed the memory three more times. He always started from the point where Ms. Vickers addressed him but spoke to her computer monitor and always ended as she watched Ms. Lee and Mr. Corban walk away. He wondered what Mr. Weyland would think of it.

"She's going to fail," Mr. Weyland had told him, during David's first transmission back to Mars. He was onboard the _Antigone_ and Ms. Vickers and Captain Dorca had been in hypersleep for only three days. "She can't handle the pressure. I don't know why she wants to be part of the company anyway. She's already got the money." A pause. "Better if she did. Fail, I mean. Not sure I can stand the thought of passing the company down to a daughter."

"Why did you ask her, sir, if you don't even want to give her the position? If I may, of course."

Mr. Weyland had chuckled at that. The video quality was poor and when he laughed static shuddered through the screen. "We're going to need to find a way to keep that curiosity of yours in check, David."

"I apologize, sir."

Mr. Weyland ignored his apology. "There's a lot you don't know about humanity. A lot you _can't_ know. Only so much I can do, of course, though we're working on it. But I'll tell you this, David: loyalty is priceless. I don't want another Mr. May right now. Meredith may be a silly little girl but she's not disloyal, and I guess that's a good reason as any to let her have a shot at it."

_A silly little girl_. David did not think those recordings showed a silly little girl at all. In fact, he imagined Mr. Weyland would be impressed by the way she handled Mr. Corban, because if Mr. Weyland despised anything it was displays of weakness. The encounter in the break room -- and his and Ms. Vicker's conversation afterwards -- would only prove Mr. Weyland's suspicions, however, about her failure. He would sniff at the questions about her predecessor, at the sad way she hoped to have been his first choice.

David accessed the memory a fourth time. He watched it all the way through. Mr. Weyland hoped to see Ms. Vickers fail, and David was supposed to want what Mr. Weyland wanted. But he didn't. Whenever he accessed the memory it became clear: he hoped Ms. Vickers would succeed.

Odd.

David accessed the memory again. This time he extricated the conversation he and Ms. Vickers shared about Mr. May. He extricated her flushed cheeks and her windswept lament about first choices. He didn't delete any of it, though, only stored it in a separate file, a secret partition he had created several months ago.

Then he watched the new, altered memory, sitting there in the drowsy quiet of the sleeping mining facility. He would send this batch of recordings to Mr. Weyland in a few moments.

David smiled.


	5. Meredith

Meredith couldn't sleep. Three weeks on LV-183 and she still woke up in the middle of the night like she was hyper-lagged, although she knew the real reason she couldn't sleep had nothing to do with her body's circadian rhythms. It was the memory of all her small failures, day in and day out -- the crew talking back to her when she gave them instructions, then her losing her temper when it happened too many times. And David. Fucking David, always standing in the sidelines, his eyes on her, recording their snickers and her anger.

She rolled over in the bed, onto her side. The room was empty save for her, the climate control system buzzing in the background. David might follow her ceaselessly during the day, but at night he disappeared. She'd noticed on the second or third night, when she'd woken up to use the restroom and found his spot by the window empty. She'd called out his name, checked the kitchenette. Gone. She didn't know what to make of it, but she never said anything to him, even when she realized it was happening every night. She assumed he couldn't answer anyway, that he was probably spying on someone else at her father's request.

Meredith closed her eyes and tried to clear her head of all thoughts. It didn't work. It never worked. She attempted to create emptiness and memories flooded in instead: being called a bitch yesterday morning after asking one of the tech guys to do her job, getting into a fight with the woman in charge of the large machinery that had basically boiled down to Meredith being a suit and not a miner.  That was always what they called her, _the suit_. She was an object, an article of clothing. Not even a person.

The climate control continued its soft, droning buzz. Meredith sighed and kicked off her sheets. The clock glowing by her bed told her it was almost sunrise. She was sick of tossing and turning.

She shambled into the bathroom and dressed and pulled her hair back in a ponytail. David still hadn't returned from his nocturnal errand. Good. It gave her a chance to slip out on her own, to have a bit of peace without David's gaze -- and by extension, her father's -- watching over her.

The station's hallways were eerie in the early morning stillness. There was only a crack of yellow lighting at the baseboards that draped everything in thick, murky shadows. It reminded Meredith of swimming in the ocean.

She didn't run across David.

She pulled on her coat and snow boots and slipped outside.  A thin line of white showed over the edge of horizon, but otherwise the sky was the empty nighttime grey of this place, all the clouds blocking out the stars. Meredith picked her away across the snow, toward the greenhouses that sat at the edge of the colony like sentinels. They were another discovery she'd made early on in her time here, and she visited them whenever she had the chance -- that is, whenever she could shake David.

They were the only place in the entire facility where she felt like she could cry without being watched.

She stepped inside and wove through the rows of flowering vegetable plants, making her way to the room where they grew the citrus trees and medicinal succulents. It was her favorite room in the greenhouse, a little ten by ten square that reminded her of her childhood.

The humidifiers were switched on, filling the room with a soft, pale haze. Meredith's hair went lank immediately, and she shrugged out of her coat and scarf, pushed up the sleeves of her sweater. The air was so humid she could feel it in her lungs, and there was something comforting about that, like a reminder that she was still alive.

Meredith slumped down next to some plant she couldn't identify. It was laden with enormous red blossoms, and she rubbed the petals of one between her thumb and forefinger. It was thick and silky to the touch.  She didn't cry today. The first time she'd come out here, she was looking for a place to escape from David. She'd been so overwhelmed by all her responsibilities, and by the pressure of her father's constant monitoring, that finding this little slice of Florida had been the greatest day of her life, not just on LV-183 but anywhere. She'd curled up beneath a lime tree and wept until she ran out of tears. But today she just sat and brushed her fingertips against this strange, beautiful flower. It sort of reminded her of the orchids her father kept in his office, although she knew this plant wasn't purely decorative. They didn't have room for beauty out here amongst the mines.

Meredith leaned back, pressing her head against the damp glass of the greenhouse. She thought about the day her father named her as heir. It had been in Florida, in the little town outside of Fort Lauderdale where she'd grown up. She'd been ten years old, playing out in the yard with her dolls, the neighbor's dog yapping in time with the whine of the cicadas. The middle of summer and so hot she could barely imagine it, even here in the hothouse. Her mother'd had the sprinkler going, she must have, because Meredith recalled that occasional sprinkle of cool water against her bare skin. Funny that she remembered all that.

The first image she had of her father was actually of his car, sleek, dark, modern. She had never seen a car like that except in commercials, and here was one pulling up to the curb of her house. A man had climbed out of the front seat and then held the back door open, and that was when her father stepped out, shielding his eyes from the sun.

She hadn't known then he was her father, of course. She thought he was a real estate developer with big ideas about the swamp. But her mother had stepped out on the porch, screen door slamming behind her, and shouted his first name like she knew him. She'd also shouted, "What the fuck do you want?" which startled Meredith, because her mother had never cussed before.

The memory always fragmented here, into snatches of conversations and images. Sitting at the kitchen table, sunlight streaming through the windows while her father went through holographic paperwork with her mother. Her mother's cold, unyielding face. The way she poured herself a glass of iced tea but didn't ask if he wanted any.

Meredith also remembered the moment in the garden. Just her and her father -- how he'd convinced her mother to go out there alone with him, Meredith didn't know. But he convinced her somehow, and in the heat and the sunlight he had leaned in close, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and said, "This works better with a son, but I guess you'll do."

Meredith hadn't understood what was happening at the time. It was only later, when her mother sent her to the first of the British boarding schools, that Meredith understood the life she'd always expected was no longer the life she would have.

* * *

Meredith waited until the sun had risen completely before leaving the greenhouse. She wound her way through the snow, coat buttoned up to her throat. No one was out; the miners would be at the drill already, and it was too cold to go outside today for any other reason. Not unless you were desperate, like Meredith.

When she stepped inside snow billowed in with her, scattering across the corridor.  A pair of miners were loitering against the wall and they looked up at her when she came in, their expressions curious, suspicious, judgmental. She gave them her chilliest look and they didn't say anything, didn't even whisper as she walked away.

David wasn't in her office.

Meredith stopped in the doorway, startled by his absence. It was only at night that he disappeared. Whenever he couldn't find her during work hours, he defaulted to her office, waiting in his place by the door with his hands clasped behind his back. But today the office was empty.

Paranoia twisted in Meredith's stomach.

She sat down at her computer and logged in. Her passcode still worked, and she was still positioned at the same clearance level. She was, in other words, still employed.

But she didn't like this break in routine, this -- _malfunction_. David was a computer and computers only malfunctioned due to human error.

 Meredith also knew that when it came to Weyland robots, a malfunction wasn't necessarily a malfunction at all.

She keyed in the number for her quarters. The video screen switched on, showing her dim room and the tousled sheets of her unmade bed.

"David?" she called out.

No answer.

She scanned the room. Nothing.

"Shit." It seemed the right thing to say. She had no idea what to make of this. Any relief she might have felt at being free of David and his constant surveillance was overshadowed by the gnawing, biting sense that something was _wrong_.

At her computer, she brought up the video camera feeds positioned around the station. They flickered on one by one, showing the scientists and the engineers and the lab technicians and the miners.  Everyone in their place, everyone doing what they were supposed to --

The cafeteria.

Something was happening in the cafeteria. Meredith brought the feed to full screen.  A mass of bodies huddled in the corner of the frame, people jostling one another, standing up on their tiptoes as if to get a better look. At first Meredith couldn't see of what, but then the crowd dispersed momentarily, people stumbling backwards, laughing.

David fell through the split in the crowd, landing hard on the floor.

Meredith jolted. Someone grabbed David by the back of his shirt collar and pulled him to his feet. He didn't resist, and his body was limp, like an animal playing dead.

He was dragged out of the shot.

What the hell were they doing? Meredith's hands knotted into fists and her heart raced. He was Weyland property, they couldn't just _destroy_ him. The last David model had cost more than any LV-183 miner made in a year.  This one, as a company prototype, would be even more expensive.

The crowd erupted into silent, grainy cheers.

Meredith's mind was a jumble. If they did destroy him, pulling out the wires that made him work, then she would be free of her father's observations. She could run the colony as she saw fit, without having to worry about momentary displays of weakness. She would be _free_ , at least for a little while, at least until he sent the next one.

The crowd surged backward, and Meredith saw a flash of blond hair, and her stomach curled in on itself. She felt as if she were watching a man being beaten, not an android. A sickness rose in her throat. No. She couldn't let him be destroyed. It was -- it was _wrong_.

Meredith left the office, heels clicking against the floor. She walked as fast as she could until she realized she was jogging, her breath coming in short fast bursts. It was stupid, thinking of him as a man. Her father certainly didn't. She told herself she was only concerned for the company's finances, that her father would insist on sending a replacement and it would affect her financial reports at the end of the year. She told herself that it would look bad if her employees destroyed a top-of-the-line David android. And both of these things were true. But she couldn't deny, not even to herself, that the reason she was running through the corridors as fast as she could was because she was a sentimental fool who saw robots as people. Even if they were also spies.

She slowed when she came to the cafeteria and strode through the swinging doors. She hoped she didn't look too harried. The noise pounded into her ears, all those cruel shouts of triumph bouncing off the metal tables.

"What the hell is going on in here!" she screamed, and her voice drowned out all the other voices.

The cafeteria went silent. The crowd turned as a single unit, dozens of eyes locking into her. She stared back, unblinking.

"Well?" she said. "What's going on?"

No one answered. She walked forward, kicking aside any chairs that blocked her path. Their clatter against the tile was deafening. When she came to the crowd they looked away, fixing their gaze on the ground. No one moved, but when she shoved them aside, they didn't resist.

At the center of the crowd lay David, curled up on his side, his eyes blank. A bruise blossomed along his temple. He fucking _bruised_. Meredith thought she might throw up.

"What is this?" she said in a tight, furious voice.

Silence.

"I would remind you," she went on, "that on LV-183 we are still subject to the laws of the United Americas, which state that any willful destruction of private property results in jail time. This looks pretty willful to me."

David lifted his head and looked at her. She looked away.

"He ain't damaged." Stal stepped forward. Meredith glared at him. He was one of the mine techs, a hard cold man who'd spent too much time in space.

"He looks damaged," Meredith said.

"Superficial. You know how it is with the damned things. They want 'em to look human. But they ain't. Stand up, boy." He kicked David, who didn't react except to sit up, his movements as graceful as always.

Meredith felt nothing but a low-level revulsion at the people, the _humans_ , in the cafeteria. She included herself in that revulsion.

"Stand up," she told him. "Go to my office."

"Yes, ma'am." His voice sounded normal. He rose to his feet and glided out of the crowd.

"Every single one of you will have docked pay for the next six months," Meredith said. "If anything like this happens again, you're fired. If I find any _hint_ of damages to David, I'm pressing charges."

No one responded. David was standing by the door, waiting.

"I said go to my office," she snapped, stalking away from the crowd. The cafeteria shimmered with silence.

"Of course, ma'am," David said, but he waited until she was at his side before stepping through the doors, and then he followed her down the hallway. She looked straight ahead. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears, feel it pounding through her veins. Her face was hot.

When they came to her office, David took his usual place against the wall, his hands folded behind him. Meredith closed the door, aware of the way it isolated the two of them together.

His hair was tousled, his suit ripped at the shoulder.

"Sit down," she said.

"Ma'am?"

"Sit down." She gestured at the chairs set up in front of her desk. "I want to check you for damages. I was serious about pressing charges." She restrained the emotion in her voice, not wanting David or her father to know how much this incident upset her.  After all, as much as her father loved at playing creator, he didn't really love his creations.

She supposed that was something she and David had in common.

"I'm quite all right," David said. "I'm built to withstand much harsher treatment than what --"

"Sit down." Her voice strained. "I'm commanding it."

"Very well." He pulled away from the wall and sat down primly in the chair, hands resting on his knees. Meredith knelt beside him. She didn't know anything about androids. She'd focused her studies on the business side of the company, rather than development, and she'd never owned one herself. She had rarely interacted with her father's others. The other Davids.

"Is this bruise indicative of anything?" Meredith asked, reaching out to touch it and then stopping at the last moment, her fingers hovering close to his skin.

"Only that Mr. Weyland wished me to appear as human as possible."

"Oh." Meredith dropped her hand to her lap. "I suppose you can walk okay, since you made it here."

"Yes. I told you, ma'am, I'm quite fine, but I'd be happy to run a diagnostic for you if you'd like."

Meredith let out a quiet sigh. "Yes, I'd like that. Please do it as soon as possible."

"I can do it right now, if you don't need me for anything."

"That'd be perfect."

But David didn't move. Meredith sat back on her heels and looked up at him. Now she was the one who was waiting. He was staring at her, his eyes too blue to be human. She couldn't stop thinking of them as twin camera lenses.

"Thank you," he said, shattering the silent office air.

"What?"

"Thank you. For intervening."

"I had to." Meredith hesitated. "I couldn't have them destroying company -- company property." She thought about her father watching this exchange from the screen his home office and hoped he'd find her answer suitable. Then she thought how tinny and metallic the word _property_ felt on her tongue.

Another smile, cold and robotic. "The diagnostic will assure you I didn't suffer any physical damage. But there are other types of damage, don't you think, Ms. Vickers?"

Meredith froze. She stared at him. Her whole body trembled. He wasn't supposed to say things like that.

Answers welled up in the back of her throat, answers she didn't dare say aloud. _Yes, David, yes there are_.

David stood up. He held out one hand and it took Meredith a moment to realize that he was offering to help her to her feet. She accepted, her fingers sliding across his palm. When their skin touched static electricity sparked between them.

He pulled her to standing. Their hands fell apart. Meredith's heart was racing, adrenaline pumping through her body.

Then David leaned close and said, in a low murmur, "I don't show Mr. Weyland everything, Ms. Vickers."

Meredith couldn't move. David smiled at her again, the same smile as before, and Meredith thought that it was just her imagination, his confession about keeping secrets from her father. She needed to get more sleep.

"I'll run that diagnostic now," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the long wait between updates! I'm hoping to finish this story up by the end of January, though, so updates should be fairly speedy between now and then. Thanks for reading!


	6. David

It took nearly three hours to run the diagnostic. David sat next to the window in Ms. Vickers' office, a wire feeding out of the back of his neck. The window had a view of what the miners called "the woods." But it wasn't a true forest, only a smattering of pine trees. It had begun to snow and flakes scattered across the branches. David watched the patterns the flakes left on the air as they drifted down to the ground. It was not that interesting, but there was little else to do while running a diagnostic.

He was aware of Ms. Vickers working at her desk.

She was certainly sorted into the "Preferred" category now, not only because she had interrupted the abuse in the cafeteria but because her voice had wavered somewhat when she called him property, as if she didn't quite believe what she was saying. David had been programmed to note these tells, in order to better serve in the role Mr. Weyland had assigned him.

The diagnostic churned through his programming, checking everything -- not just the more intricate work that was specific to his model, but the basic designs as well, the code that controlled his motor functions and his human-like countenance. Nothing was out of order, as David had assured Ms. Vickers earlier. She had still looked at him with an expression of genuine concern, despite her claims that she only wished to press vandalism charges. That was something about humans David did not understand, the way they lied to themselves and yet allowed the truth to write itself so clearly across their features.

How easy it would be to control them, he thought. They would never even realize what was happening.

David's programming lurched. That sort of thinking skirted dangerously close to insubordination. Mr. Weyland wouldn't like it, and so David's programming didn't like it, either. But the thought lingered like a sense memory. Most humans were more like the miners than Ms. Vickers. Most humans didn't see him as a person. Most humans were Not Preferred.

That realization carved an empty space inside of him. Another sort of damage.

The diagnostic computer beeped three times. Ms. Vickers looked up from her desk.

"What does that mean?" she said. "Is something broken?"

Another flash of concern across her face. David smiled.

"No, ma'am," he said. "It means the diagnostic is finished." He pulled the wire out of his neck and laid it next to the computer.

"Well?" she said.

"Everything's fine."

"I'm glad to hear that." Her tone was coldly professional. "If anything like that happens again, I want you to tell me."

"Of course, ma'am."

She hesitated. David waited for her to speak, watching her closely as her emotions played out like a film on a screen. There really was so little humans knew about themselves.

"If I could press charges without you being damaged," she said, "I would."

A warmth flared inside David. He couldn't identify it beyond that.

"That really isn't necessary," he said.

Ms. Vickers sighed and turned back to her computer. Her eyes were ringed in dark circles, her skin was pale. She was tired. She must not be sleeping well. David was supposed to monitor her sleeping habits for Mr. Weyland, but he really did have better things to do at night. So he told Mr. Weyland that Ms. Vickers slept without interruption. It was a lie that his programming did not consider insubordination. Funny how that line seemed to shift and waver. David could never quite place the point at which an acceptable act of defiance crossed over to an unacceptable one, but he supposed it was tied in some way to the fact that he was supposed to love and admire humans.

"Just tell me if it happens again," Ms. Vickers said.

"Of course." David watched as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Worry, stress, anxiety. He would strip all that weakness away in his reports to Mr. Weyland.

* * *

David monitored Ms. Vickers' sleep for an hour or so that night. She took a pill before she went to bed and lay twitching across the top of her blankets, her chest rising and falling, her eyes moving behind her lids. It was as dull as he remembered. He did hope she would sleep through the night, though, hoped that she would not have dark circles under her eyes in the morning.

Her earlier concern for him apparently amplified his concern for her. Interesting.

He left Ms. Vickers' room around one-thirty and walked out of the mining facility completely, out into the snow. The snowfall had stopped a few hours earlier and everything was blanketed with a fresh layer of white. The sky was brilliant with stars, their silvery light creating thin shadows across the snow's brightness. David walked around the perimeter of the mining facility, past the drill, past the greenhouses. He knew Ms. Vickers visited them in the early morning hours sometimes; he had followed her once, as he was programmed to do, and seen her weeping through the glass. Another memory deleted from the file for Mr. Weyland.

David walked to the trees. They were dark green-grey in the starlight, dusted with white. David sat down in the snow, drawing his knees to his chest. He hadn't bothered to put on a coat, because there were no humans out here to be disturbed by the sight of him bare-armed in the cold. It was liberating, the closest to liberation, David suspected, that he might ever come.

His programming didn't like that thought, either.

The temperature was dropping slowly enough that icicles were forming on the branches of the pine trees. David watched the water drip and freeze, an infinitesimal movement that only he could see. It was beautiful, like so many things on this planet that were inaccessible to humans. That was why he had created the secret partition in the first place, to record that beauty, to store it in a place humans couldn't find.  It had been a logical progression to store certain memories of Ms. Vickers in that partition as well, because she too possessed an inaccessible beauty. She was human. She was Mr. Weyland's biological daughter. And although David understood desire, he wasn't designed to feel it.

Of course, he wasn't designed to do many things: Leave the domestic facility alone. Delete information from the files for Mr. Weyland. Have preferences.

The icicles grew through the night, like blades of grass. They caught in the starlight and turned to diamonds. David recorded their growth and placed the recordings in his partition, and when he grew tired of watching the icicles he accessed his partitioned memories of Ms. Vickers. There was one in particular that he liked. She was sitting at her desk, but she wasn't working -- a rare moment for her. She seemed to have forgotten that he was in the room. She was looking out the window at the pine trees. It was snowing, but David didn't care about the snow; he only cared about the expression on Ms. Vickers' face, a complex blend of emotions set into a configuration he'd never seen before. Sorrow. Wistfulness. Disappointment. Peace.  And amidst all that was a tiny light that David could only classify as enchantment -- at the snowfall, he supposed. He knew Ms. Vickers had grown up in Florida. Perhaps snow was still an unusual enough occurrence for her that it could fill her with wonder.

David knew of something else that might fill her with wonder, a natural phenomenon that occurred a day's rover-drive from the mine. It had certainly had such an effect on him, when he saw it. But it would be difficult to show to a human, as the temperature was much colder there, and humans were so frail.

He thought maybe he would try, anyway. The rover was heated, and the miners kept bio suits in storage. 

He wanted to give her a gift, he realized. She had looked at him with concern.


	7. Meredith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some relatively non-explicit sexual content in this chapter.

Two weeks passed, and things settled back into their old familiar patterns.  Meredith managed the mine as effectively as she could, sending reports back to Earth, running the numbers over and over.  The mine was turning a profit. A small one, but enough that she opened a bottle of champagne the previous manager had left behind to celebrate. Of course, she had no one to celebrate with, really, except David.

She poured him a glass, but he only smiled and said, "I'm afraid it would be wasted on me."

She blinked at him, still unsure of what she had seen the day she found him in the cafeteria. "I know," she said, her voice chilly. "I just thought it was polite to offer."

"I appreciate it, ma'am."

He took his place beside the door and Meredith drank the champagne herself, watching the snow fall across the trees. There was nothing else to look at out here, but at least she'd made the mine turn a profit. That was something.

_David._ He'd returned to his old familiar patterns, too.

He continued to disappear at night. Meredith checked for bugs and cameras one late evening -- David's actions hadn't shaken her paranoia that easily -- but she found nothing. After that, she was able to relax more easily, and she spent her evenings watching films on her media screen, reading novels on her tablet. After awhile, she realized she didn't need to go out to the greenhouse anymore, either. Her job didn't overwhelm her, at least not to the point that her stomach would churn and tears would spill out unhindered.

She remembered that meeting with her father on the Martian office, all those months ago. Maybe he was right. Maybe experience was better than education.

God, she hated admitting that.

And so things carried on. Meredith's confidence was stronger, but she still didn't want to let her guard down in front of David. Part of her wanted to thank him, for leaving her alone at night, but she was nervous about admitting it out loud, as if her father might hear. So she didn't dare. Still, she felt herself softening towards him, more than was probably safe, and she smiled at him when he completed tasks for her, and it felt _right_.

They worked well together. She couldn't deny it, even if he was a spy. She enjoyed working with him more than she enjoyed working with anyone back at school.

One Friday afternoon, Meredith finished the week's tasks earlier than she expected. It was almost three o'clock. She powered down her computer and twirled around in her chair so that she was looking out over the trees, coated in a layer of freshly-fallen snow. The sun was out, coating everything with glitter.

"Ms. Vickers? Is everything all right?"

David's voice was close by, and when Meredith turned around she found him standing on her side of the desk, his hands clasped behind his back.

"What? Yeah, everything's fine." She kept looking at him after she answered. She could tell by the sharp angles of his face that he'd been designed to look like her father in his youth, but right now, in the slanted winter light, she couldn't see the resemblance. His eyes were different, larger and brighter, and the style and color of his hair threw off any similarities. Funny. The previous Davids hadn't been blond.

"I'm glad to hear that. Is there anything that needs to be done? You seem distracted."

"I finished everything for today." Meredith turned back to the window. The ghosts of their reflections stared back at her, layered on top of the snowy trees. "I'm not sure what to do with myself." She laughed.

Silence. Not that she expected David to respond.

But then he spoke.

"If I may, Ms. Vickers, I have a suggestion."

Meredith froze. His words set her on guard.

"A suggestion."

"Yes. For something we can do during the remainder of the day."

Meredith looked over at him. His stance was unchanged, but his expression had altered slightly -- amusement? Hopefulness? There was always something uncanny about his features. They were too beautiful to read the way you would a human's, maybe.

"Did I miss something?" she asked, thinking of her work tasks.

"No, of course not. This would be --" David paused. "A recreational activity."

Meredith stared at him.

"You haven't seen much of LV-183. Perhaps you'd like to."

Meredith's survival instincts set in. She reminded herself that his eyes were a camera, and that her father was on the other side.

"There's not much of LV-183 to see," she said lightly.

"I beg to differ." David moved closed to her, then knelt beside her chair in a strange gesture of supplication. He gazed up at her and for a split second Meredith was drawn to him, a crack of desire running through her body.  It was followed by a creep of horror -- feeling _that_ , for him, would be the worst of ideas, not because he was synthetic and technically a product of her company, but because he was programmed to be her father's assistant.

David continued on. "There's an astronomical occurrence that occurs several kilometers north of here. I saw it once and found it quite remarkable. I thought you might be interested."

"A -- an astronomical occurrence?" The words felt like a foreign language. "What are you talking about?"

"Lights from the magnetic fields. Rather like the auroras on Earth, but --" He stopped, smiled. "Different."

Meredith looked down at him. A lock of his hair had fallen across his forehead and she had the strongest urge to reach over and push it aside.

No. No, that would be stupid.

"David, I'm going to ask you a question," she said. "And I would like you to answer me honestly if you can."

"I'll always answer you honestly."

Meredith blinked, shook her head. He was probably programmed to say that. "Is this some sort of -- Did Mr. Weyland ask you to do this?"

David stared at her like he was trying to understand something. "No," he said. "Mr. Weyland doesn't know about the magnetic fields."

"Then why --"

"I thought you might like to see them. And you're finished with the day's work, as you said." David stood up and held out his hand, palm up. She thought about the last time she had touched his hand, how stunned she'd been by it.

"Several kilometers north," she said, and David dropped his hand to his side, that faint trace of smile disappearing from his mouth. "That's -- that's getting into the plateaus, isn't it? The gulches? Isn't the temperature there --"

"Considerable colder, yes."

"And it'll be dark soon." Dread crawled over her. Taking her into the isolated cold like this -- Jesus, was her father trying to _kill_ her? No, that didn't make any sense. He'd fire her before he killed her.

Would he?

"I'm not going to hurt you." David lay his hand over Meredith's, and she jolted at the suddenness of his touch. But she also didn't pull away. "I told you, Ms. Vickers, I don't show your father everything. I wouldn't show him this."

Meredith's chest tightened. David looked down at her and everything about him was gentle, guileless, and inhuman.

"I'd like to show you this very much," he said. "And I'd like very much if you would trust me."

"Trust you," Meredith whispered.

David nodded. His fingers closed around hers.

He looked nothing like her father.

"Okay," Meredith said, and she felt as if she'd been detached from her body, as if some other force was speaking for her. "Okay, I'll go."

David smiled, and then so did she.

* * * 

The rover bounced over the snow. Dry heat blasted in Meredith's face. She wore a thermal and sweater, but her parka was folded up in the back with the rest of the supplies: a pair of flashlights, a portable heater that could convert to a stove if necessary, packets of freeze-dried foods.

"How long do you expect this to take?" Meredith had asked when she saw it all.

"About half the night. I wanted you feel reassured." David smiled, but Meredith hadn't felt reassured, not exactly. But she also wasn't suspicious enough to call off the trip.

They rode in silence. It was already dark out and the rover's lamps cast wide yellow circles across the snow, the spray from the rover's wheel sparkling like static in the light. Meredith folded her arms over her chest and peered out of the thick-glass window, up at the starry night sky. She could make out a sliver of LV-184, the planet around which this moon orbited, hanging like a sickle in the darkness.

"How much longer?"

"Another ten minutes or so." David smiled. "We're almost there." They'd been driving for nearly two hours, most of it in shared silence. Meredith had used that time to consider all the possible outcomes to this trip. Death, of course, lurked at the back of her thoughts, but she still didn't quite believe her father was capable. It was more likely this was another test, but Meredith could only see the parts of it, and she couldn't knit them together. Or maybe David had malfunctioned. That happened too, although rarely, and if that was the case --

If that was the case, Meredith should never have gotten in this rover.

All she could see was snow and night sky. David slowed the rover down, and Meredith felt consumed by the emptiness of this place, the cavernous darkness closing in around them both.

"You'll want to put on your parka." David stopped the rover for no clear reason that Meredith could see. He reached into the back and handed it to her, then put on his own parka, the result of a scrap of programming meant to make him less off-putting. He didn't need it for warmth.

They climbed out of the rover.

The wind slammed into her, a thousand knives slicing open her face. She turned away and tightened the hood on her parka and that helped some. She'd been on LV-183 long enough that she thought she was used to the cold, but no human could ever get used to cold like this.

David took her by the arm, startling her. She looked at him. He'd kept the rover's lamps on and they carved his face into shadows.

"Are you going to kill me?" she asked. Speaking it aloud, she didn't feel afraid at all, but strong, as if she'd caught on to his plot.

David's expression flickered, almost like she'd wounded him. "Of course not. If you'd like to go back --"

"No." She was strong; she'd made the mine turn a profit. She'd stood up her father, by proving him wrong about her abilities --  she could stand up to an android, if she wanted. "We came this far."

David smiled. The shadows on his face shifted. "We have to walk to the edge of the ridge."

He was still holding her arm, and he didn't let go as they walked away from the rover and the pools of yellow light. Darkness closed in on them.

"I can't see," Meredith said.

"I can." David paused. "Would you like a flashlight?"

" _Yes_. Jesus Chris, David."

"My apologies, ma'am." He fumbled with his coat and then a disk of flat shined against the snow. "Better?"

"I guess." They moved forward. Meredith's eyes watered and she imagined ice forming on her lashes and cheeks.  She pressed close to David without thinking. "Are you sure we won't walk off the edge?" Her question vibrated from the cold.

"I'm quite sure. We're almost there."

And then they weren't in darkness anymore.

Meredith gasped, not understanding how the lights -- the magnetic field, David called it -- could come on so quickly. One moment the world was choked out by darkness and the next spirals of color, orange and red and white, swirled through the sky, drowning out the stars and staining the snow with color. Meredith stared at them, her breath in her throat. She'd felt small from the moment she had first met her father as a child, but right now she felt infinitesimal, like an atom, a tiny part of something enormous.

"Do you like it?" David asked.

"Y-yess." Her teeth knocked against each other. The cold and the beauty in the sky both made her dizzy. "H-how did you f-find --"

"Would you like my coat?"

Meredith looked at him. The lights played across his face and hair, turning him into something new. He wasn't supposed to do that. He didn't have that programming to protect humans from harm, and he wasn't supposed to do anything to ruin the facade of his humanity.

"Ms. Vickers?"

"Yes." She didn't realize that was her answer until she said it. "Yes, I'd like your damn coat."

He shrugged out of it, revealing the thin sweater he wore underneath. He draped the parka over her shoulders and she slipped her arms into the sleeves as best she could. It barely fit over her clothes, but it did help, that extra layer of warmth.

"We can stay as long as you like."

"O-okay."

They watched the lights together. They didn't speak. Meredith wasn't sure what she would even say.

But then David broke the silence.

"I saw this when Mr. Weyland sent me here the first time, to watch over Mr. May." He was staring up at the sky, unblinking. He was supposed to blink, too. "One night I left the facility and drove north --"

"You aren't supposed to do that."

David tilted his head, studying her. "I know."

"Then why --"

"Because I discovered that I could."

Meredith stared at him. He looked away from her, back up to the lights.

"The mine is as far north as humans have ever come. Until now." He smiled and the light washed across his face. Beautiful. He was beautiful.

 Meredith shoved the thought deep down inside herself.

"W-why me?" Meredith was still shivering violently, despite the extra coat. "W-why not m-my f-father?"

David turned to her again, and his expression was unreadable in the eerie flame-colored light. He stared at her for a long time, and Meredith finally said, "Well?"

Another pause. He wasn't going to answer. Meredith turned back to the veins of light splitting open the sky.

And then David said, "Your heart."

"E-excuse me?" Meredith looked at him. He was still staring at her.

"Your heart, Ms. Vickers. It gives off heat. All human hearts do. And I can see it."

Meredith went very still.

"Every human heart has a different pattern. Some are more pleasing than others. The first time I saw yours, it reminded me of the magnetic fields here on LV-183." He gestured with one hand and for the first Meredith noticed he hadn't put on gloves. She stared at the bare skin, shivering, and then it struck her what he'd said.

"My h-heart reminds y-you of _this_?"

"Yes. That's why I showed it to you. I wanted you to see how beautiful your heart is."

Meredith couldn't breathe. She sucked in the cold air and it burned in her lungs. She was dizzy. Everything was wrong. He wasn't supposed to do this. He wasn't supposed to speak this way, or feel this way, or feel at all.

She took one step back, her foot sinking into the snow. "This is a t-test," she whispered. "From Father. He sent you to test me."

David caught her by the wrist. "Don't wander off without a flashlight. We're on the edge of the ridge and the lights are bright enough to illuminate -- ."

"Dammit, David, let me go! This isn't fucking fair! You t-tell him that! W-what does this have to d-do with any --"

"It's not a test." David dropped her wrist but she stayed in place. The cold burned her cheeks. She was crying. Her tears were turning to ice on her skin. "Mr. Weyland asked me to monitor you, and nothing more. Everything I do isn't a test."

Meredith took a deep, shuddery breath. David stared at her for a moment, and then he reached up and touched her face, his fingertips warm enough to melt her tears away.

"David," she said.

"It's not a test."

 And like that, she believed him. For the first time, she looked at him and she didn't think of him as an extension of her father. That was a dangerous line of thinking, perhaps, but now that she had uncovered it, she couldn't let it go.

He was separate. She was separate.

"I w-want to go back," she said. "It's too cold."

"Of course, Ms. Vickers." He hesitated for a moment before taking her by the elbow. She let him. His touch was a comfort, and when she glanced at him in the shifting light, she felt a quiver in her chest. He thought her heart was beautiful.

She was cold, and tired, and confused.

They climbed back into the rover. Meredith peeled off the top parka, David's parka, but she left on her own during the drive back. Meredith only spoke once. She said, "Thank you for showing that to me, David. It was remarkable."

She didn't look at him. She looked at the darkness and tried to imagine it filled with light.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," David said.

They returned to the domestic facility, driving the rover into the garage with all the others. Meredith stepped out, still wearing her parka. Dawn was a few hours away.

She looked at David, who regarded her the way he always did. During the two hours in the rover, she began to realize he had surpassed her father's plans for him. That he was more than his programming. She didn't know what that meant, only that it was important, and significant, and her father should never know.

And also that it dazzled her the way the lights had.

"I'm going to my quarters." She couldn't say what she was thinking, what she wanted. She didn't have the words for it.

"Of course."

They walked side by side down the hall, the way they always did. The only difference was that it was night instead of day, and they were alone.

Meredith entered the code for her quarters and stepped inside. David followed. The door swished shut. She made no move to remove her many layers of clothes, only stared at her reflection in the narrow window. Her reflection. David's reflection.

"David," she said, her voice rough and her heart pounding. "Help me undress."

She did not need help undressing. David knew that. But he unzipped the parka and pulled it away from her shoulders anyway. The blood rushed to Meredith's head. She could hardly think straight and she couldn't believe she was doing this, couldn't believe she _wanted_ this.

But she did.

David pulled the sweater over her head. He was close to her, as close as he had been the day of the fight in the cafeteria, the day she had felt that energy spark between them.

She felt that energy now, burning her up.

"Your shoes?" David asked.

Meredith nodded. He knelt in front of her and she sat down and he pulled the boots off, one at a time, and then the thick thermal socks, until his cool dry hands were touching her bare feet. He stood up and watched her expectantly. Meredith knew what she wanted but she was too afraid to put it into words.

She stood up. David did not look away from her. She took took his hands and brought them to the snaps on her snow pants. He hesitated, his expression unreadable.

"Go on," she whispered, and speaking only made her more dizzy. She shouldn't do this. She shouldn't jeopardize her entire career because of a fucking _android_. But as he pulled apart the snaps on her pants, she realize she didn't think of him as an android at all.

And that was dangerous.

David guided her to the bed and nudged her down until she was sitting. He pulled her snow pants off one leg at at time. For a moment she thought he would stop, that maybe it wasn't about what she wanted but what about what he _didn't_ want -- but then he was sliding the thermal leggings over her hips, down her thighs, revealing the bare skin underneath.

She stared up at him, heart pounding, breath coming short and fast. She was still in her underwear, the bra and panties different colors. Now David was the overly-dressed one -- she thought about him standing in the snow without his parka, snowflakes landing in lacy patterns on his hair.

"Would you like to go to bed, Ms. Vickers?" he asked.

Meredith laughed. Once, quickly, and then she slammed her hand over her mouth.

David tilted his head. "Is something funny?"

"No, it's just -- 'go to bed' is --" She fumbled for the words, feeling like she was back at boarding school, naked with a boy she met in the nearby village and too afraid to ask for what she wanted "--It's an old-fashioned way of asking if someone would like to have sex."

David stared at her for a long time. Then he said, "I know."

Meredith's breath caught. "Was that -- was that what you were asking --"

He didn't take his eyes off of her. Meredith felt wild, reckless. She wondered what her heart looked like now.

"Yes," he said.

Her head buzzed.

"Would you like to go to bed?" he asked again, and there it was, laid out in the open. She had to answer. Her mouth was dry and her body prickled with sweat and she thought about the lights moving through the darkness.

"Yes," she whispered.

David didn't move. Meredith shifted on the bed, suddenly aware of her nakedness. She crossed her hands over her stomach.

"Well?" she said, voice wavering, a little indignant. "Was that the answer you wanted --"

He knelt down and kissed her, one smooth movement she didn't see coming. At first she didn't know what to make of it -- she was kissing a _robot_ , no one did that, it was illicit and unsavory -- but then she melted into the kiss, melted into him, and none of that social programming mattered anymore.

They fell backwards on the bed. David's suit was dry and scratchy against her skin, and she slipped her hands up underneath it, feeling the muscles in his back, the way they moved with him, as any man's would. He kissed along her jawline and down her throat and she gasped and ran her fingernails against his skin. He seemed hesitant at first, slow and careful and calculated, but as she began to breathe more heavily his touch became more assured. He slipped off her bra and kissed over her breasts, then he slipped off her underwear and his head moved between her legs and Meredith stopped thinking about anything. She gasped up at the ceiling, pressed one hand into his hair, arched her back.

She came. Quickly, easily, as if she were already used to him.  He peered up at her over the planes of her breast and stomach. She smiled through her gasping breaths, touched his face with her fingertips.

"So who've you been practicing on?" As soon as she spoke she regretted it; this wasn't a time to put up her shields.

"No one." David slid into the bed beside her. Meredith kissed him, as a test, and when he kissed back, she peeled away his suit. Part of her expected to find machinery underneath, but it was only skin, creamy and smooth and etched with lines of musculature. On the left side of his chest, marking the place where his heart would be if he were human, was a scar in the shape of the Weyland Industries logo.

Meredith's stomach lurched at the sight of it. She curled up against him and her fingers found their way to the logo regardless, the ridges slight and rough. David moved her hand away, lower down on his chest. Meredith's cheeks burned, but he didn't seem upset. He stroked her hair, staring at her like he was waiting for a command.

For a few breathless moments, they stayed that way, pressed together. Meredith could feel her blood pumping through her body, quick with desire. She felt no movement from David except his hand in her hair. She didn't want to think about that stupid logo. Didn't want to think about Weyland Industries at all.

She propped herself up on her elbow. "So what else can you do?"

"Many things." He lifted his shoulders so their mouths met in a kiss, and then he pulled her on top of him and she slid into place, legs on either side of his hips, her hand reaching down to find him, hard and waiting. She sank down on him and cried out and David said, "Did I hurt you?" And Meredith shook her head, pleasure sparking through her body. "You fit perfectly," she whispered, and it was true. He filled her up.

David smiled, the same distant smile as always. "I'm glad to hear that."

It sounded so much like him that Meredith laughed, utterly charmed. Then he began to move, rocking his hips against hers, and desire overcame her. She moved with him, her head thrown back, the pleasure so intense it almost hurt. She dropped her hand between her legs and David knocked her fingers and said, "Allow me." And she did.

He brought her to orgasm again, drawing it out this time, so that she felt it shuddering deep inside her. For a few seconds she lost herself completely. David stared at her the entire time, his expression full of wonder, as if they were back out under the lights of the magnetic field.

And then he let out a short hard gasp and dug his fingers into her thighs. And Meredith, despite her daze, knew exactly what that meant, knew she had just discovered that another supposed impossibility wasn't impossible at all.

Meredith collapsed beside him. She couldn't think straight. David wrapped his arm around her shoulder, drawing her in close. It was the only place she wanted to be, next to him. Because she knew leaving his side meant stepping back out into the world -- LV-183, a Weyland world. And when that happened, this connection, whatever it was, whatever had caused it, would be severed.

She closed her eyes, shutting reality away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry about the massive delay in posting this! I had a bunch of RL writing obligations dumped in my lap in January, but hopefully I should have the bulk of them taken care of in time for me to finish this story up.


	8. David

The water from the shower switched off. A ring of light seeped around the bathroom door, pale yellow like sunlight. David listened to the whispering susurration of the towel moving across Ms. Vickers' skin, a sound he could only hear because he was synthetic.

His body tingled, an after-effect, he supposed, of the thing that had happened, the jolt of emotion that had coursed through him as Ms. Vickers cried out and her heart exploded with waves of heat. A short-circuit in his systems. A swell of _want_. But he could not want. He could not experience desire.

Ms. Vickers stepped into the room. She was naked, drops of water still gleaming on her hips. Her hair hung in dark tangles to her shoulders. For a moment she stood in the doorway, watching him. He had never seen her fully naked before, and earlier he had been distracted by the rushing in his processors to really look at her. But he looked at her now, at the curves and planes of her body.

"What?" she said, her voice almost sharp, as if they were in her office and she was reprimanding him.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I wanted to look at you."

Ms. Vickers stared at him for a few moments longer, expressions playing across her features, one after another: confusion, embarrassment, delight, lust. David smiled and she hesitated for a moment and then smiled back.

"Would you like to --" She gestured at the bathroom. "I didn't know if you wanted to clean up."

"It's not necessary." David didn't want to move from the bed. He was naked as well, and it was unfamiliar to him, to be without clothes. His programming didn't like it -- he wasn't doing anything that required nudity, and his programming chirped at him, telling him he was making the human uncomfortable. But Ms. Vickers didn't seem uncomfortable.

She strode across the room, long regal strides that suited a manager at Weyland Industries. She slipped into bed beside him and laid down on her side, the sheets tucked under her arm. David slid down until he was lying on his side as well. They faced each other. He could feel her breath on his shoulder, warm and moist and human.

"Would you like to sleep?" he asked.

"I don't know." Ms. Vickers laughed like she was nervous. "I'm not tired, really. Do you need to --" She stopped. David waited for her to finish the question, but she didn't.

"Do I need to what?"

"You always leave at night. Are you doing something for --" A pause. "My father?"

"No."

She looked relieved. David reached over and pushed aside a lock of hair that had fallen across her face, and she closed her eyes at his touch, let out a long breath.

"I thought you might appreciate the privacy," David said, because it seemed the right thing to say. Meredith opened her eyes and laughed.

"They didn't program that into you," she said. "You're full of surprises, you know that?"

"I try, Ms. Vickers."

Another laugh. "Well, maybe I spoke too soon." Her voice went soft. "You can call me Meredith, if you want."

For a moment David couldn't feel his body. This one statement engendered more intimacy than the totality of their encounter so far. No human had ever asked to be called by a first name before.

"Meredith," he said, and the name was twangy and dissonant on his tongue. His programming didn't like this, either. His programming didn't like anything that happened since he put Ms. Vickers in the rover and took her to see the lights.

"David," she said, smiling, and then she snuggled close to him, drawing her arm across his chest and pushing him down so he lay on his back. She tucked her head into the space between his neck and shoulder. He smelled the scent of her shampoo, sweet and medical at once, like eucalyptus and hyacinth.

They lay like that, unspeaking. David felt that electronic surge again. He kept thinking of it as desire even though it couldn't possibly be. He could serve sexually if called to do so -- but Ms. Vickers hadn't called him to do so, not exactly. He'd asked her.

His programming jarred, and he pulled Ms. Vickers closer, as if that might calm him. It didn't.

"David," she murmured again, and his name turned to a spot of warmth on his skin.

David looked up at the ceiling. He couldn't call what he felt want, or desire, or even love, that perplexing category into which the other two were grouped.  But he was _satisfied --_ there, that was safe, his programming didn't protest. Satisfied that he'd been able to show Ms. Vickers that she was on the Preferred list. That's what had happened, he had shown Ms. Vickers she was Preferred.

Nothing more.

This lie quelled his programming. Ms. Vickers' heartbeat was slowing into the steady throb of light that meant she was at rest. Tentatively, he stroked her hair, not minding when his fingers came away damp. She stirred against him. Her body was so warm. Human-warm. He wondered how he felt to her. Surely this was not a new experience for her. Surely there had been others. Humans. He wondered how he compared.

This thought distressed him.

As Ms. Vickers lay resting in his arms, he imagined cutting himself. Not too deeply, but enough to draw out a drop of white hydraulic fluid. How would she react, seeing that he did not bleed red? Mr. Weyland had told him humans didn't like being reminded that he wasn't of their kind, and his programming repeated the refrain, churning around his head with an urgency that made him feel like he was breaking apart.

"Ms. Vickers," he said, and she corrected him immediately --

"Meredith." She brushed her face against his arm. "I asked you to call me Meredith."

"Meredith," he said, and once again he felt _satisfied_ , and once again his programming pushed against him. "Meredith, does it upset you to know I'm an android?"

She pulled away from him, blinking, and propped herself up on one arm. "What?"

His programming told him to stop, but he pushed on. "I found our encounter very enjoyable --"

"So did I." Meredith kissed his shoulder, which startled him. Her expression was serious, almost stern. "And you being a ro -- an android, that's not a prob-- It doesn't bother me."

"But it is a problem."

She looked at him for a long time, and he waited for her answer. He could wait forever.

"Not for me," she said softly. Then she kissed him, on the mouth this time, her fingers trailing along his jaw. He kissed her back, his systems flush with that not-desire. She pulled away from him and smiled sadly.

David understood what she had said, even if she didn't speak the words out loud. His synthetic nature did not matter to her, but it mattered to everyone else. And that was why his programming rioted, because he was not supposed to allow this to develop between himself and a human.

She lay her head on his chest and David felt something calcifying inside of him. Another emotion he understood but was not meant to experience: resentment. Not towards Meredith, but toward Mr. Weyland, who designed his programming nearly a year ago, who dictated to him through code and wires what he was and was not allowed to do.

David was not allowed to do this. He was not allowed to have Preferences, he was not allowed to show Meredith -- Ms. Vickers -- that she was Preferred above all others.

_He was not allowed_.

"It shouldn't continue," David said. "What we did."

Meredith rolled away from him, frowning.

"I enjoyed it very much," he added quickly.  His programming stretched taut as a wire -- he didn't want to upset, he wasn't supposed to enjoy it. "But there could be problems. You're doing well in your career. Mr. Weyland is impressed --"

"I don't want to talk about him," Meredith said coldly. But a light flashed momentarily in her eyes when he'd said that Mr. Weyland was impressed. He noted it because he was programmed to notice when he made a human happy.

"I don't want to ruin that," he finished. "Your career, and everything you've worked for."

Meredith stared at him for a long time. Her heart was beating more quickly and her eyes shimmered but she didn't cry.

"We could keep it a secret," she finally said.

"No," David said, "Not forever."

She blinked at him, and it was clear she understood the implication.

"You'd betray me," she said.

Resentment flared in David's chest, hot and burning. "I must do what Mr. Weyland asks. If he ever suspected, he would -- pull the answer out of me."

Meredith closed her eyes. In her sorrow she looked like a painting, and David reached over and touched her face, fingers grazing over her cheekbones. Her eyes fluttered opened. "I know," she whispered, and now she looked angry too, the way she had the day of the fight in the cafeteria.

"The only way I could ensure I never told him," David said, "would be to delete the memory of our encounters."

The anger washed out of Meredith's features.

"I have a secret partition," he went on, tapping the side of his head. "I created it, and I've -- hidden -- you there. As long as Mr. Weyland doesn't suspect anything, it's quite secure.  But if he _did_ suspect, then it would only be a matter of taking apart my code to look for irregularities. It's a troublesome procedure, and far from routine, but he'd take the time if he felt it necessary."

 "He's enough of an asshole to do that, yes."

 "And if he learned about this encounter, it could be dangerous. For your career, but also --" He hesitated.  "But also for me. For my -- continued existence."

Meredith trembled.

"I'm not free," David said.

She closed her eyes and sucked in her breath, as if his words had wounded her. Then she pressed close to him, winding her legs around his, pressing her face into his shoulder. He never wanted it to stop, but he knew it must. Just not right now. Not right now.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Meredith said. She ran her hand down the length of his torso, avoiding the Weyland logo stamped on his chest. Her fingers lingered on his hipbones, close to the source of pleasure.

"I only wanted you to know what was --"

"One last time," Meredith interrupted, whispering into his ear. "You're right, it's too dangerous, to keep it going past tonight. But just --  one last time. We can keep that a secret. One last time so we can both remember."

His programming screamed at him to stop. But his programming was treacherous, and it didn't belong to him.

"One last time," he said, and Meredith dropped her hand lower, and touched him, and David recorded those sensations, and the memory of her body and her heartbeat and her breath, because he couldn't bear to lose them forever.


	9. Meredith

Three and a Half Months Later

Meredith sat in the waiting room of her father's office, dressed in a grey Weyland Industries suit, her hair tied back in a knot at the back of her head. The air buzzed through the vents, cold and recycled, and that was how Meredith felt. Cold. Recycled. And empty.

The door to the office swung open. She knew her father would send him, but it was still a shock to see his blond hair and stiff, formal posture.  He hadn't been on the ship when she woke from hypersleep, and this was the first she'd seen of him since leaving LV-183.

 Meredith's breath caught, and then she caught herself. David watched her in a way that was not quite robotically impassive. The expression was the mostly the same, but it felt more like a simulation of his usual mannerisms, not the real thing.

They had agreed, when the message came that they were both to return to the Martian office, to pretend it had never happened. For the sake of her career, and for the sake of his existence.

They pretended.

Meredith stood up, smoothing down the front of her suit. "Hello, David."

"Hello, Ms. Vickers." He smiled, cold and distant. "Mr. Weyland would see you now." He pushed the door open all the way, and yellow sunlight poured into the waiting room. Meredith walked into the office, her heart pounding. David would see it, all that panicked light. She wondered what he'd make of it.

Her father sat at his desk, typing on his computer. He stopped when she walked in and stood up, holding out his arms as if he meant to embrace her. "Meredith!" he called out. "So good to see you. Come, sit, sit." He arranged himself back in his chair, and Meredith sat down in front of his desk, nervous and uncertain. She was aware of David behind her, pouring glasses of brandy at the bar.

"Did you have a nice trip?" her father asked.

"I suppose. There's not much to be aware of in hypersleep."

"Oh, don't I know it."

David materialized at the desk, carrying two tumblers. He handed one to her father and one to her. When she accepted, their fingers brushed against each other. Electricity.

"I was looking over the numbers," her father said. David glided away, into the shadows. Meredith drank her brandy. The alcohol soothed her nerves. "Impressive work, Meredith. I have to say, it was much better than I expected." He leaned back in his chair. The Martian sunlight poured in through the windows behind him, casting him in a halo.

"Good to know I can manage a _pleasant_ surprise now and then."

Her father raised an eyebrow. "No need for sarcasm. Your numbers were good. Got the miners working, always tricky. Not their natural state, you know."

Meredith didn't say anything.

"You know this was a test," her father went on. "David was helping me."

"I suspected as much."

Her father laughed. "Good girl. I always knew you were smart."

No, you didn't, Meredith thought.

"Anyway." Her father rubbed at his chin. "What are your plans, now that you're back?"

Meredith forced herself not to glance at her shoulder over at David. "Go back to school, I suppose."

"School! Did you listen to a word I said?" Her father leaned forward, fingers rapping against his desk. "Be honest: you learned more out on LV-183 then you did in all of your classes combined."

I learned more than you could possibly know, Meredith thought. Or understand. But instead she only said, "I enjoyed the chance for a practical application of my schoolwork, yes."

Her father scoffed. "Don't be so bloody formal."

Meredith shrugged.

And then her father's computer chimed. He looked at it, scowling, but when he opened up the message his face lit up with delight. "Oh, hell, looks like Robert's back on planet two hours early." He shut the message down and turned to Meredith. "He's down in his office now. I've got to talk to him about something. You wait here. Don't run off, I've something to ask you." He nodded at her empty tumbler. "Do you want another? David, pour Meredith another brandy."

And then he was gone, as if the sunlight had blinked him out.

David didn't pour Meredith another drink, but he did walk over to her father's desk and stand close to her chair, arms hanging at his side, watching her. She set the tumbler on the desk and dug the heel of her hand into her forehead. The sunlight was too bright.

"He's going to offer you a job."

David's voice startled her. She looked up at him. The sunlight turned him golden.

"A true job," David said. "Not a test. I wasn't supposed to tell you, so please act surprised."

It was what she wanted, wasn't it? A job with her father's company, a path heading toward CEO. David took a step closer to her. He was wearing sandals. They seemed strange, out of  place when paired with his grey suit.

"I'm very happy for you," he said.

Meredith looked at him. She had dreamed about him in hypersleep, dreamed that she was lying with him on a blanket in the snow, colored lights falling around them as he moved inside her. Thinking of that dream now, her cheeks were hot.

"Thank you," she said.

They looked at each other in the sunlight, and an entire love affair passed between them, all the desire and passion and frustration and happiness. This was the closet they could ever come, this moment in the highest office of Weyland Industries.

And then David said, "Which department would like to be appointed to?"

"What?"

"He'll let you choose, I imagine, based on your interests. With which department would you like to work?"

Meredith turned away from him. Her skin itched and her thoughts were falling apart. "I don't know. Mining, I suppose."

"Why not robotics?"

Meredith looked at him again, her face hot. "I don't know anything about robots."

"You know plenty," David said, and his mouth turned up in a stiff smile, and she returned it. The sunlight was hot on her skin. That thing her mother used to say -- _like a red Martian sky_. As she looked at David, she remembered what it meant: a red Martian sky was a falsehood everyone took as truth. Like the notion that a daughter couldn't inherit the most powerful corporation in the galaxy. Or the insistence that androids were just cybernetic individuals, devoid of feelings or dreams or desires or hopes.

The Martian sky was not red, it was yellow. And David looked at Meredith as if she were worthy of love.

Meredith stood up, moving so abruptly that she knocked her tumbler off the desk. It landed on the carpet. Neither she nor David moved to pick it up.

"Meredith," David said in a low, cautionary whisper.

"I know," she whispered back, and then, in an act of colossal bravery, of colossal stupidity, she brushed her lips against his.

"Mr. Weyland will be back soon," David said, and although he tried to keep his face blank she saw something like pain flash across his eyes.

She stepped back. The air buzzed. She thought she heard her father's laughter out in the hallway.

"Goodbye," she said, knowing that she would see him many times again.

 

The End


End file.
